30 Days: Avatar Land Lands in the "Official Guide"

Looks like Disney is feeling pretty good about getting Pandora--The World of Avatar open next year. The Birnbaum Official Guide, which is produced with the cooperation and under the guidance of the Walt Disney Company, has included descriptions of Avatarland's two attractions in the 2017 book.The new section of Animal Kingdom, under construction for what seems like forever, is said to be scheduled to open "by mid- to late 2017," though the usual caveats about the unpredictability of construction timelines is also included.

I'll include the photo of the Official Guide's page copied from the Laughing Place blog, because who ever heard of copyright, right? Anyhow, you can read all about the two new attractions there. They sound fun and the entire new "land" sounds like it will be a visual masterpiece, especially at night.

I'm no fan of the Avatar movie, but I'm very much looking forward to this!

58 Days: Poohsticks' Bookshelf

With the approach of Hermine, one must gather supplies. Tops on my list, truth be told, was rawhide bones for Belle the Hound Dog. She gets a little stressy during storms and raw hides are her Valium. The there's biscuits (Lisa's request), cereal and of course Little Debbie Oatmeal Pies, because they are traditional.

But what to do while it's nasty outside? Perhaps the power will go out. Good thing I'm stocked up on some pretty top notch reading, and Disney reading at that. You'll see a review of each of these in the coming days and weeks, but here's a little preview.

The Thinking Fan's Guide To Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom-- I've actually already finished this book, and it was great, but it was a little bit ago and I think I need to refresh my memory before I can review it. It contains history and some editorial thoughts on each attraction in the Magic Kingdom, both of which were interesting and often thought-provoking.

Drunk At Disney-- I'm almost finished with this one and it has made me snort out loud quite a bit. But aside from being hilarious, this book contains some really valuable information, such as which bars allow you to order from the associated restaurant's full menu. Brown Derby with out an ADR? Yes, please.

The Design of Fear-- This is the second book by RJ Ogren, a former WDW Animatronic Artist Lisa and I met at Mizner's Lounge during our Epic Monorail Bar Tour last September. This book features stories about working on haunted houses, from Disney's Haunted Mansion to the Queen Mary to others all over the country.

Keep Moving-- This is Dick Van Dyke's autobiography written on the occasion of his 80th birthday. This man is an inspiration. He lives Disney Magic. He loves life and it shines out of him. I'm guessing there's a lot he can teach me about growing older with class and exuberance. If he has any dance tips in there, so much the better :-)

Any interest in a Poohsticks Book Club? I just had that idea. I'm a genius.

Refuting The Top 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney, Part 3

So I'm happily looking at my Facebook newsfeed the other day and one of those "Sponsored" things is up there. It's from a site called Viral Travel (which sounds like a bad idea on the face of it) and is entitled 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney. Of course I bite. Sue me. So its about what I expect, the same things we Disney fans fans from you non-Disney fans-- crowds,expense, capitalism, yadda yadda yadda. The thing is, many of these criticisms are true to a large extent, but avoidable. I hate to see people get spoiled on the Disney I love because they go about the whole experience unprepared logistically or mentally for the realities of the place. I figured just for kicks to take the 13 reasons one by one (or two by two) and try to explain why they don't keep ME from the Magic. This part three, part one is here and two here.

11. The Crowds Are Insane

So you’re going to go to Disney when it’s vacation time, but so is everyone else who happens to have time off work and school at the same time. Unless you can go during the off-season, you’re going to be enjoying the park with thousands and thousands of strangers

9. The Lines Are Insane

With the big crowds come big lines. The better the ride, the longer the line. Want to go on Space Mountain? Be prepared to wait well over an hour. The most insulting part is the ride is over in 5 minutes, making you question how worth it the wait really was.

Yes, Walt Disney World is one of the most popular vacation destinations on the planet. It gets crowded, sometimes very crowded.  Crowds equal long lines for some, and sometimes almost all, attractions. But find me a theme park that isn't like this, or a beach, or any popular vacation spot. If you go away to a popular place during a popular time, you likely won't be lonely. Basically, the complaint above is correct in that any time your child is off school, the park will be crowded. And when Disney parks are crowded, there will be lines. There are two ways to deal with this, go when it's less crowded or learn ways to make the most of your time when the lines are long.

The easiest way to deal with Disney crowds is to plan your trip for a time that is less crowded. Sites like touringplans.com offer detailed crowd calendars that can help you pick a less crowded time. In our experience, September is great and we've had good luck doing weekend trips right before Thanksgiving. If your child attends a school with a year-round or other non-traditional calendar (or you home school) you're in luck and it's easy to go at a time when crowds aren't "insane." NEVER go right around Christmas, particularly the week between Christmas and New Years. I am a HUGE fan, know all sorts of ways around crowd problems and have been enough times that I am not dying to ride every ride, but I see pictures from that week and it doesn't look at all like something I want to be involved with. We've had days in September when we walked on every attraction, not a line to be had. Those times are getting fewer and harder to find, but they are still there. It's worth taking your children out of school for your trip, in my opinion, but course that depends on the child involved and the school. We've had good luck is all I can say.

Sometimes, however, you find yourself in the Disney parks with all of humanity trying to ride Space Mountain at once. I'm going to start sounding like a broken record in these posts, but planning and knowledge really are the keys to making a Disney trip fun no matter the circumstances. Understand and use the FastPass system. Period. You are a fool if you don't. FastPass is Disney's way of letting you pre-book an attraction for a specific time window allowing you to return at that time and wait in little or no line. The FastPass system is free to all park guests and it really works, but you need to use it and it helps if you enter the park with a general plan, because using FastPass kills spontaneity to some degree.

I can't explain all there is to know about FastPass in one blog post. Books could be written about FastPass at this point, but they'd likely be obsolete by publication because Disney is in the process of changing how FastPass works. The introduction of MagicBands has turned FastPass into FastPass+, allowing you to make attraction reservations months before you leave your home for your trip. The trade-off is a restriction on the number of attractions you can get a FastPass+ reservation for and a sort of Chinese restaurant menu system for choosing which ones. You can now get one from column A (the most popular) and two from column B (the less popular) in one park each day. Attractions include rides of course, but also reserved parade viewing and character meet and greets. You can use an on-site kiosk while in the parks or the My Disney Experience app to change your FastPass+ reservations at any time, so ALL the spontaneity isn't gone, but it's more complicated.

That's one thing I will admit as a potential drawback to a Disney vacation. It requires a lot of forethought, planning and study to make it all it can be. For me, that's a plus, I LOVE doing those things. But if you don't, Disney can be a hard place to navigate. There are plenty of resources to help you, though. Websites like Chip & Co, the DisBoards, AllEars.net, WDWInfo and touringplans.com are great. Many guidebooks are also available, the best of which is without a doubt The Unofficial Guide To Walt Disney World. One caveat about the Unofficial Guide, though, this year's edition went to press before the FastPass+changes were finalized, so it is zero help navigating that system. The 2015 version will be out in the fall and will I'm sure be awesome.

One last note. This might peg me as a total Disney Geek more than anything else, but I actually feel a bit

You wouldn't want to miss the giant balsa wood airplane, would you?

cheated when there is no line. Disney makes their queues interesting, even fun. The "line" such as it is, for the Dumbos is a big indoor playground waiting area. Guest receive a beeper and when their turn to ride comes, it goes off and they collect the rug rats and head onto the Dumbos. I didn't even get to look around this area because there was no line when we rode, twice back-to-back, during the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. There are video games in the Space Mountain queue and kids' activities in Winnie The Pooh's. The themeing of the hotel housing the Tower of Terror is spectacular, there are tiny details everywhere and it kind of kills me that every time we've visited the attraction, we've walked right by all of them. I annoy the folks behind me stopping to look all the time, and tend to get shuffled along.

I've truly embraced the Disney Magic, I actually LIKE the lines. :-)

A Few Good Links

Today I saw some really interesting and/or fun articles and blog posts concerning the Dis, so I thought I'd share.

What's On Walt's Bookshelves?

 I have something in common with this author. I too love to look at the bookshelves in homes of people I visit. It gives me a window into the person who owns the books and, as the author says, it may show me a book I want to find for myself. I'm sure anyone old enough to remember the Wonderful World of Disney shows on television can remember seeing Walt Disney standing in front of a huge wall of books. This article delves into the story behind that bookshelf and shares some of the books found on it. It's not what I was hoping for, but extremely interesting anyhow.

How To Get And Use A Pin Code

This is an installment in Everything Walt Disney World's series of how-to's. I have heard of pin codes, special discounts Disney sends out to people it considers good potential customers, but I've never gotten one myself. I'm going to try some of the tricks in this blog post and see what happens.

Disney Monorail Stuff

Our new decal. Thanks Iapaluccis!

I have always LOVED Disney's monorails. Riding the monorail was, and still is, an attraction in itself. I love the retro-modern styling, the way they are different colors so you can try to ride them all, the cement rails that look exactly the same way today as they did when I was 5, I love it all. Apparently they no longer let people ride up front with the driver, which is a bummer, but at least my son got that experience before they quit. This article from MousePlanet has some awesome pictures of monorail toys and models.

The Coming of the XPass?

All the hub bub about enforcing Fastpass rules may be just a prelude to the introduction of a new XPass system. XPass would reportedly allow visitors to some deluxe resorts the option of paying more to schedule ride times weeks or even months in advance. I'm not sure what I think about this idea, and I want to know more than just rumors about it before I give it a post of its own, but this article is at the very least food for thought.

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2012

I was vaguely aware of some disagreement in the Disney fan community over the Unofficial Guide. Reading some message boards, it seemed that some saw it as too "anti-Disney" while others swore by the book as an honest guide to handling the massive Walt Disney World properties. I bought a copy to see what all the fuss was about, and hoping that it might bring me up to speed on anything that had changed since our last visit in October of 2010. After wading through almost all of the book's 854 pages, I can see both sides of the argument. A friend asked me about the book as a way to get excited about a future trip to Disney World and that made me think about just how I would recommend it. In short, I think anyone headed to Walt Disney World will find some very useful information in the Unofficial Guide, but I wouldn't want it to be a first time visitor's only resource to prepare for a trip.

The Unofficial Guide is two things first and foremost -- it is thorough and it is honest. The authors, Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa, know the parks inside and out and make use of a whole team of researchers as well as comments from past editions' readers. The reader comments are featured in blue italics and offer some of the most entertaining reading you'll find anywhere. The authors have done a great job of offering a variety of opinions, and on many Disney subjects, opinions vary wildly. It's not only the huge variety of offerings inside Disney's property that are covered in this book, also covered are outside accommodations (including rental homes),  area restaurants and also Universal Studios and Sea World (although not in as  much detail). Inside Walt Disney World Resort, every attraction, lodging, restaurant and golf course is reviewed. The book is very much an instruction manual for getting the most for your time and money. It has no photographs, but does have maps (46 to be exact) and charts.

Oh boy, do Len and Bob love them some charts! Want to know which rides scare which age of child, based on survey results? There's a chart. Want to know which resorts have what amenities and room sizes? How long it will take you from any resort to the entrance of any park by car or Disney transportation, with and without heavy traffic? Ticket pricing? Price of an average day? Crowd levels? Wait times? Climate? Len and Bob have a chart for you. They like charts and maps. They like a plan. Actually, their website is called http://touringplans.com/. They have used surveys, personal experience and mathematical crowd tracking algorithms (for real) to figure out how to see the most attractions in each park in the least amount of time. According to readers, they work, although they require a lot of discipline and a willingness to trek back and forth across the park quite a bit.

This is where my reluctance to recommend this book to first timers comes into play. If you look at a Disney vacation as a mathematical exercise, trying to wring the most experience and least cost out of every minute, you will miss the magic. Walt Disney World is the unique destination it is because it is an immersive experience. Disney is more than a collection of rides and shows and restaurants and hotels. I'm sure you could save money staying off-property and driving in every day, or leaving each afternoon to eat in Orlando or Kissimmee, but you'd be missing out on the reason for going to Disney in the first place. For me and my family, and others who "get it", Disney offers escape from the hassles of the real world. It's worth it to us to spend more to not have to leave the magic while we are there, it's ok if we have to wait in a line. We even like the buses. I think a first time visitor would gain useful knowledge from the Unofficial Guide, but should also keep an open mind about what to allow themselves to experience.

With that said, I'm going to address a few common "debates" concerning a Disney vacation in my next few posts. I'll cover staying on-site vs. off, using your own car vs. Disney transportation and the Dining Plan vs. no Dining Plan. My answers won't fit everyone, but I think they may at least give you food for thought.